![]() ![]() 'The reality,' he continues, 'is that the DynaRig concept is an extraordinarily good solution for a large yacht. Of course, my answer was that instead of copying the Falcon they were going to copy everybody else by having a conventional mast with spreaders and all the normal paraphernalia. People would talk to us but would then say that they didn't want to be seen copying Maltese Falcon. 'We spoke to many people and it created quite a bit of stir and interest. ![]() When asked how quickly after Maltese Falcon people started enquiring about the concept, his reply is short. To date the company now has refined the rig for a yacht under construction at Oceanco, is working on an 8,000 DWT cargo ship to be called the Ecoliner, and has researched the concept of two-masted yachts with Perini Navi and Ken Freivokh, who did the styling and interior design for Maltese Falcon.įor Freivokh, it has been an ongoing mission to promote the Falcon Rig concept, but an uphill struggle. But in a note to us, Gerard Dykstra mentioned that the response has been slow in coming. With the success of Maltese Falcon and the research done by Dykstra Naval Architects, it would appear that such a rig could have a successful future for large yachts. The design engineering and concept has proven itself since the yacht's maiden voyage in 2006, consistently delivering speed under sail at 16 to 20 knots. Perkins set up a company to build the carbon fibre spars on site with Fabio Perini designing the small captive outhaul motors that unfurl and tension the sails and the mandrel that winds them back into the mast. ![]() ![]() Perkins, a laser engineer by training, was intrigued by the DynaRig, enough so to buy the patent rights and residual technology originating with Prölss's DynaSchiff from the German government, which included reams of testing data. But Dykstra saw the value of the DynaRig and showed it, along with a traditional and modern square-rigs, a schooner rig and a sloop, to Perini Navi and Tom Perkins as potential sail plans for the existing 88 metre Perini Navi hull that would become Maltese Falcon. At that time, however, the construction of a carbon fibre DynaRig was cost prohibitive. Evaluating all possible hard- and soft-sail options, for that project, they chose an Aerorig schooner, with the DynaRig a close second. In 2001, Dykstra had investigated an optimal sail plan for an environmentally-friendly, large, world cruising project. The rig now known as the Falcon Rig was designed by Dykstra Naval Architects, Damon Roberts of Insensys and Perini Navi under Perkins' direction. But with advances in carbon fibre and fibre optic sensor technology, roller furling sails, computer optimisation of sailing angles and reliable hydraulics, the DynaRig was finally feasible for a large vessel. It was too heavy, hydraulics were not advanced enough in the marine world to be reliable, sail controls required many people and roller furling systems were in their infancy. Part of the reason the rig had never been built was that technology in the 1960s and '70s was not advanced enough to make lightweight spars even as a tripod instead of a single pole. When the coefficients showed the DynaRig concept to be twice as efficient as conventional square rigs, the idea became credible.īut in spite of being promoted heavily in technical papers, the idea was untested at full scale until American venture capitalist Tom Perkins decided to use it to power Maltese Falcon. It used the DynaRig sail he first posited in 1967, in a research project studying the efficiency of many different sail concepts for commercial shipping. A German hydraulics engineer, Wilhelm Prölss, proposed a 'DynaSchiff', a 160 metre bulk carrier with six steel tripod-masts. But necessity being the mother of invention, the 1973-74 OPEC oil embargo had ship owners looking toward sailing ships once more. ![]()
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